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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348423">As Only You Can Do</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbirdhadflown/pseuds/thisbirdhadflown'>thisbirdhadflown</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Beatles (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:27:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,951</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348423</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbirdhadflown/pseuds/thisbirdhadflown</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Something about John demands to be separate, to be above. To fill space, occupied or not, John has to be accommodated - even if he must bleed into spaces Stuart would never give up for anyone. But people chase that privilege."</p>
<p>Stuart paints John's portrait, 1960.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>John Lennon/Stuart Sutcliffe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>As Only You Can Do</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Stuff off,” John grunts, puffing out a curling ribbon of smoke up to the ceiling, “You don’t need a model, I’ve seen you do without.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart props up the blank canvas on his beloved easel, pulling up one of the kitchen stools behind him, “I need a </span>
  <em>
    <span>male </span>
  </em>
  <span>reference this time, it’s different.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John scoffs, taking another drag from his cigarette, “I’m a beast. A twisted freak. Capture my essence and you’ll be haunted.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart chuckles, flicking open a mason jar of paint and giving a sweeping glance over John’s form. He’s curled up on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, arm thrown over his stomach and the other hanging off the couch, the end of his smoke spilling ash onto the dusty floorboards. “All the more reason to try.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His nose screws up as he grimaces, hauling himself upright and glaring at Stuart through hooded eyes, “Christ, yer not actually doin’ it, are you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart blinks, “I need to.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John grits his teeth, glancing off to the side for a few moments of tense silence. Stuart’s request isn’t a clumsy overstepping, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows </span>
  </em>
  <span>that John will writhe away from cameras at the best of times. Maybe that gives the proposal an extra thrill, the trust between them being tested. He can see John calculate Stuart’s worth in comparison to the dreaded task of being seen. He gnaws at the flesh of his cheek, busying himself with his tools - giving the neglected palette knife the cleaning it was owed from his last session. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not taking my bloody pants off for you to ogle,” John pipes up a long moment later, shifting over the sofa. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart looks up at him, keeping his delight muted and casual, “Don’t need you to. Just above the waist.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John swallows, “You mean t’ take my shirt off?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart mentally stumbles, feigning nonchalance and shrugs as he stutters, “Ye- Yeah. That’s all.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John has to take a moment to decide, and Stuart only has the strength to glance at him, mentally noting the structure of his upper body and begins to work on a basic outline of his companion. The shapes, the building blocks, of John Lennon’s physicality. It’s easy enough to be caught in the tide, the rhythm of applying dark acrylic tones to the clean canvas. John puts out his cigarette on the ashtray on the coffee table and Stuart hardly registers the movement, tongue bitten into as he adjusts the angles that define John’s face with watered down swipes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You started already?” John eventually asks, sitting with posture drawn in. Some may read it as closed off and brooding - Stuart knows plainly that it’s shyness. The armour he wears and wallows in. His black shirt with the high collar hides his form, what Stuart has only seen glimpses of when they stumble into their rooms and strip down before bed. John’s fingers slowly creep towards the hem of the garment, curling up and tugging at the fabric. Stuart realises he’s holding his breath in anticipation. “You need me to pose?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sounds so painfully shy about it, the annoyance has dissolved into something more unsure and tentative. Stuart dips his brush into a dirtied jar of black acrylic paint and mumbles a response, “Just as you are is fine. You can sit up, if you like.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And the shirt?” John presses on, lifting up his chin. Stuart can feel his eyes on him, hear the nerves blurring the edges of his voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Stuart swallows, “The shirt can come off.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John peels off the shirt, pushing out his chest and straightening his posture as he does so, but doesn’t discard the item. He holds it in his hands, pulling it inside out and fidgeting with it. His skin is moonlight pale, smooth and with pale freckles scattered over shoulders that have relaxed to a downwards slope - rather than sitting tensed up at level with his chin. The elation of having a layer between them peeled back is palpable, Stuart marvelling for a moment of soft sentimentality before he clambers for a thicker brush and makes quick work of adjusting his outline. The frantic nature in which he works won’t alarm John, but maybe the distinct spots of scarlet over his cheeks will. He throws himself into his work, resisting the gluttonous temptation to stare mindlessly at John’s physique. Fascination burns fervent in his abdomen when he replicates the milky afternoon light hitting John’s side. The slight curve of his bicep, the slender forearm, the long fingers curled over his knee.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart thinks of John in blues and reds. The interpretation of blue is elastic, meaning can fall where he likes. Red is impassioned and smouldering and alluring. He imagines these colours in twisting ribbons forming John’s soul, the intertwining of dual concepts. Another paint brush is dedicated to the deep rose paint that fills one of the smaller jars, he reaches for it and begins applying the undertones of John’s hair. Today it sits in a messy tired quiff, still artful in how it sweeps across his forehead, tousled curls that are usually hastily combed back with oil. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John isn’t looking at him, or anywhere in particular. He seems to just be staring off into midair, face relaxed and sitting in that almost melancholic way that it does when it’s quiet. Something you could only paint in grey tones, angelic whites to brighten the angles the light ignites and darker greys for the sharp shadows under his jaw, below his cheekbones, in his eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart knows the shape of John’s eyes well. Usually heavy lidded. The soft curve of his eyelids fall over amber eyes that can be so maddeningly elusive. Is the hue earthy? He can’t quite tell. He hasn’t allowed himself to sit and stare that closely. He looks up, adjusting his glasses over his nose with a paint-splattered hand and finds John looking at him. No, it’s not an earthy colour. It’s something akin to dark honey. Dark oak - carved intricately. The lashes that frame them are not the heavy, romantic type that Paul will bat moodily at him. John’s lashes are lighter in colour, they sweep in slow blinks when he’s drowsy and catch the light when he turns his face away. Stuart knows where to look to find the brightness in John. He’s an artist. He knows about shadow and light. He knows the balance between these concepts, he knows how they apply to John. His breath hitches, hand unmoving and hovering over detailed beginnings of John’s brow. The thick straight line of them, the fierceness they give to an otherwise soft face. The eye contact propels him to study their shape more intently. The silence is not uncomfortable. Stuart can hear the faint scrapes of the palette knife as he drags it over the canvas, applying fierce swipes of cloud-white. He drags his finger over the circumference of the mason jar of red paint with the intention of colouring John’s mouth, picturing them in their raw and shiny state after a few drinks or a love making session with Cyn in the back room. But he hesitates, catching the faint blush over John’s cheeks and tentatively applies a dot of scarlet to each side of his face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When John breaks the silence Stuart doesn’t flinch, “Why don’t you draw blokes?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” Stuart hums.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s always girls,” John’s eyes aren’t imploring, barely curious at all, “Women.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Stuart can carve out </span>
  <em>
    <span>something </span>
  </em>
  <span>underneath the translucent skin of his armour. What the light doesn’t catch. “More interesting, I ‘spose. Pleasing to the eye.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John turns his face, looking to the window with tattered thread-bare curtains pulled closed, “Mm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart licks over his lip, diverting his gaze to John’s portrait, “It’s more challenging.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What d’ye mean?” John looks back to him, but Stuart can’t stand to look him in the eye as he speaks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Women are softer. Curves and such. Ye have t’ think about it when you’re drawing them, how the shadows land, because there’s hardly ever a clear cut line.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He drags the tip of his palette knife along the straight line of John’s jaw, aware that his heart is bleating in worried thuds against his ribs. John doesn’t respond for a short while, allowing Stuart to sink back into his working state and leave anxiety behind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s easier to draw a bird with big tits,” John remarks, leaning back into the couch, crossing one leg over the other, “Because that’s what yer always drawing when you’re a lad. You know it to the point of bein’ sick of it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart’s chest flares with heat, “I don’t think of it like that. There’s diversity in every form.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John shrugs, a lax movement that seems to be the extent of his willingness to continue the conversation until he opens his mouth a few moments later, “Spose that’s what I get for wanting so much of something. Always too much.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The admission rouses hot-blooded stirrings of emotion, the mania of paint fumes and his own desperation to capture John’s visage for the sake of securing this intimate moment to live on in immortal glory - he has to bow his head and steady himself. The trembling desire rattling the walls of boxed off emotion. John exists as an outlier to so many of Stuart’s instincts and sensibilities. Something about John demands to be separate, to be above. To fill space, occupied or not, John has to be accommodated - even if he must bleed into spaces Stuart would never give up for anyone. But people </span>
  <em>
    <span>chase </span>
  </em>
  <span>that privilege. Paul mopes about in the kitchen of their flat, making a point of propping his guitar right next to John as he fetches them beers out of the fridge. He observes their interactions with such sour disapproval. For everything those two share, Paul still seems to painfully envy whatever Stuart possesses of John. Maybe it had been amusing in the beginning, the younger boy standing morose and silent against the bar of Ye Cracke as John and Stu chatted excitedly in a cosy booth with no regard for anyone outside their bubble. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Always too much</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Stuart can relate. He wants too much from his school, his training, his future. Too much from himself. Two eyes, constructed with painstaking detail and care, watch him as he ruminates over John’s words. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He realises he’s made a mess of this portrait in the maddening rush to seize every detail, every notion he applies lovingly to John. It’s too cluttered and messy - filled with everything John means to him. He could almost despair at his failings by falling to his knees, hitting those creaking floorboards with a mighty thud - buckle under the weight of attraction. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They have created their own womb of energy and it has obscured everything else. He paints John not because of a desire to paint. It’s simply another way to hold John still for just a moment and admire like the longing and awe-filled spectator he is deep down. How strange, he laments internally, to be so close to someone and yet still have to create these intricate efforts to stand back and admire this being he has thrown himself into - this being that bares his skin and soul only to him.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve ruined it,” Stuart forces out, a whimper of a sound, but John hears it and stills. The turmoil isn’t a rapture of agony and remorse - it’s akin to the trembling in your hands as you apply that first lick of paint to something that you want to be extraordinary. It has everything to do with the intensity he relishes in, the emotion that swelters in this flat and sets it alight with colour and passion and purpose. It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>John</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the force of nature that has swept him up and declared him an equal. It’s a thing of beauty, a true honour that extends beyond anything he’s ever felt for anyone else. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He turns to John, almost enraged by his feelings - overwhelmed by the burden of keeping anything from John, let alone what has been simmering - barely dormant - since the day they met. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John swallows hard, throat bobbing, “What’re you on about?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t do it right,” Stuart feels an immense pressure on his chest, and is spurred by anxiety to migrate with quick steps to the kitchen sink to scrub his hands, “I’ll have to try again, I don’t know why- wasn’t thinking. Fucking hell.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His teeth are in a fierce grind by the time he has managed to rid his skin of peeling paint, frustrated by emotion he can’t do justice. Emotion he has to stew in. When he exits the kitchen he catches sight of John’s bare back, his friend looking at his incomplete portrait. His stomach twists, wounded ego growing heavier and darker. He can’t force out a self-deprecating remark before John speaks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You see me like that?” he asks, voice low and soft. He hasn’t looked away from the painting. Stuart watches the way his shoulders rise and fall, the curve of his spine, the muscles of his back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Face aflame, Stuart responds, “It’s not enough.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John does turn around at this, and Stuart sees his black shirt still bundled up in his hands, “I’d never be able to do that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart opens his mouth to protest but John continues on, “But I always want to. For you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They drift towards each other, the gap between their chests tightening to a exhilarating slip that would take so little effort to close it makes Stuart’s head spin. John is watching him, like he’s expecting to be hit, or calculating how to hit him. Back and forth, back and forth. They watch each other, absorbing each other. The tension is ringing in his ears by the time John cranes his neck and presses an experimental kiss to his mouth. It’s so easy. His movements are instinctual and fluid, hands flying up to hold John’s jaw, secure a grip around his waist. His skin is warm to touch and it spurs on such mindless desire he can barely breathe. The shirt falls from John’s hands to their feet. Their kissing is primal, a reflection of the remaining intimacy that they have been painfully depriving themselves of. He sees it in John’s eyes all the time, but there was no name for it. All he knew was that it mirrored what Stuart was feeling. What his body and mind were longing for along with everything else. He wants to hold onto this intimacy forever - or as long as it can last at this intensity. John moans, a carnal sound that sends a jolt of heat straight down his spine, pooling stark heat in his groin. John pulls back, lips spit-slick and eyes hooded and clear. Stuart’s breath catches in his throat, feeling like something has been ripped from him instead of gently pried off. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You make it feel normal, like it’s the easiest thing in the world,” John remarks bitterly. Softly. Stuart ducks his head, eyes burning into the floor between their socked feet, skin aflame with a heat. His curiosity has always been so docile, a silly placid thing that he could toy with safely in his mind. He could catch sight of John’s bare shoulders as he pulled his shirt over his head and marvel at his sculpted frame, committing his shape to memory before returning to a charcoal sketch of the life model from class. Lax instincts turned animalistic, he thinks to himself as he looks up and meets John’s blown pupils boring into him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’d never lie to you,” he speaks through the emotion welling up in his throat, “I’d never just-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know,” John’s lids fall closed, forehead dipping forward. Stuart wants to catch his crown in his hands and kiss along all the hard angles and soft curves of his face. He can barely move at all but manages to extend a trembling hand to cradle John’s cheek. He leans into the touch with a sigh. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can’t stand it,” John speaks, voice wavering, “How you stand me.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can’t stand it,” he echoes, softer, eyes still closed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stuart presses closer, nose brushing against his, “I know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I go mad with it,” he murmurs, lips against the flesh of his palm. Stuart doesn’t speak, dizzy and overwhelmed. He imagines how they look, standing this way. Two figures curling into each other, completing each other. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I want you,” Stuart says, both a reassurance and a promise. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>John opens his eyes, something flickering over his features that Stuart couldn’t name but somehow understands. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Always too much</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’d never lie to you,” Stuart presses once more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>An uncertain hand curls over the fabric of his shirt at the dip of his spine, John’s form melting into his with an exhale, “You’re the only person I believe. Only one I trust.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His skin flushes, goosebumps rising over his arms, hairs standing on end when John mouths at his neck. </span><br/><br/>
  <span>Afterwards, when they’re splayed over the mattress and drifting off, Stuart wonders if he needs to revise his initial vision of John’s portrait. The realisation comes to him softly, a settled feeling of comfort and satisfaction warming him to the point of a faint smile. He wouldn’t have to change a thing - they could never hide from each other, they could never </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>know each other. There is nothing he can hide from John, nor anything John could hide from him. To find </span>
  <em>
    <span>comfort </span>
  </em>
  <span>in that must be a mad notion for some, but they simply have no choice. What an </span>
  <em>
    <span>honour</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he thinks. How fortunate it is to miraculously collide with someone and find that they fit you perfectly. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading, as always. <br/>The title is from Elvis' song, I'm Counting On You. Give it a listen and think of John and Stu lounging in their flat.<br/>Say hello over at thisbirdhasflownx on tumblr xxx</p></blockquote></div></div>
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